Pirates’ farm teams have successful seasons
The Pirates are always quick to point out that player development comes before winning in the minor leagues.
However, winning is a nice byproduct and the Pirates farm teams did a lot of that in the regular season as the seven combined for a 417-346 record — a winning percentage of .547.
Three of the four full-season affiliates qualified for the playoffs: Class AAA Indianapolis (83-61, International League), Class AA Altoona (74-68, Eastern League) and low Class A West Virginia (Charleston, 87-52, South Atlantic League).
High Class A Bradenton just missed making the postseason, going 74-64 in Florida State League.
Short season Class A West Virginia (Morgantown) also got to the playoffs with a 42-34 mark.
Just the two rookie-level clubs finished with losing records as Bristol went 29-36 in the Appalachian League and the Gulf Coast League Pirates ended up 28-31.
Bradenton right fielder Harold Ramirez had the highest batting average of any Pirates’ minor leaguer with at least 300 plate appearances, hitting .337. Altoona infielder/outfielder Adam Frazier batted .324 and first baseman Josh Bell finished with a combined .317 average for Altoona and Indianapolis.
Charleston right-hander Austin Coley went 16-6 to lead in wins. That was three more than righty Angel Sanchez (13-2) had for Altoona and Indianapolis and left-hander Steven Brault (13-4) had for Bradenton and Altoona.
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The Pirates quietly notched their 82nd win of the year on Tuesday night at Cincinnati to clinch their third consecutive winning season.
The Pirates, of course, had 20 consecutive losing seasons in a row, a major North American professional team sports record before their current run.
In case you are too young to remember, the Pirates’ last had three straight winnings seasons from 1990-92. The last time they had more than three was from 1974-80 when they had seven in a row.
The franchise record is 19 from 1895-1913.
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Also noteworthy on Tuesday was Pirates third baseman Aramis Ramirez making the first appearance of his 18-year career at first base.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Ramirez became the seventh player in major league history to start 2,000 or more consecutive games at one position before starting at another, joining Pirates legend Bill Mazeroski and fellow Hall of Famers Nellie Fox and Tris Speaker along with Larry Bowa, Mickey Vernon and Omar Vizquel.